Simply Mac, the GameStop-owned Apple Authorized Reseller, is closing a number of its stores around the United States.
The list of stores affected hasn’t been released as of yet, but outlets in North Carolina, North Dakota, Montana, Texas and Illinois will all be affected.
Netflix makes some darn good drama shows, but it’s the company’s forthcoming documentary series that really has us interested. Called Abstract: The Art of Design, it’s an 8-part series about visionary designers, set to arrive on February 10.
Despite not featuring Apple (at least, based on what we’ve seen in the trailer), it certainly looks the kind of factual programming that would be of interest to Cult of Mac readers.
Check out the trailer below.
In a perfect world, the next Mac Pro would be better, smarter, faster… and also bigger.
At least that’s how Mac fan and brilliant graphic designer Pascal Eggert envisions the long-ignored high-end Apple desktop. Check out his concept designs below.
Amazon’s Alexa devices were some of the most exciting tech products of 2016, and immediately there were rumors that Apple was planning to follow suit with a standalone Siri — possibly even with the addition of facial recognition tech.
A new report, however, claims that despite its popularity, Alexa has been a massive money drain on Amazon so far. In 2016 alone, it lost Amazon $330 million, and this figure is set to rise to $600 million-plus this year.
Rumors that Apple’s upcoming iPhone 8 will come with wireless charging just took another step forward, thanks to a report claiming the company has added a new manufacturer to its supply chain to help achieve this.
The new supplier is Taiwan-based Lite-On Semiconductor, which will reportedly be providing GPP bridge rectifier components to support wireless charging.
Apple has settled a possible antitrust lawsuit to the satisfaction of European Commission regulators and German Federal Cartel Office, after scrapping an exclusivity deal with the Amazon-owned Audible.
The investigation dates back to November 2015, following complaints from the German Publishers and Booksellers Association.
A court in South Korea has denied a request from special prosecutors to arrest the acting head of Samsung over alleged corruption and bribery charges.
Lee Kun-hee, Samsung’s vice chairman and the only son of its incapacitated chairman, had been accused of using Samsung subsidiaries to make possible bribery-related payments of $36 million as part of a scandal involving the country’s president Park Geun-hye and a confidante.
Apple is the “most intimate” brand in the U.S., according to MBLM’s new Brand Intimacy 2017 Report.
What is an “intimate” brand, you might ask? According to MBLM, brand intimacy is defined as, “a new paradigm that leverages and strengthens the emotional bonds between a person and a brand.”
Apple Music fans in the United States can now listen to CBS Sports Radio as part of their subscription package, bringing the total number of news and sports radio channels on the service to nine.
“CBS Sports Radio delivers this to fans 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so it’s an ideal next step to launch a channel on Apple Music, one of the most popular streaming services today, as yet another way we continue to meet the evolving desires of this passionate audience anywhere and everywhere,” said Chris Oliviero, Executive Vice President of Programming for CBS Radio.
Indian officials are reportedly keeping an “open mind” with regards to Apple’s demands in return for considering producing iPhones in the country.
“We will very much like Apple to come and have a base in India,” Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters earlier today.
There may be disagreement over whether Tim Cook’s Apple is a more predictable, less interesting one than Steve Jobs’ Apple, but one thing that’s for certain is that Cook has enjoyed a heckuva rise to power.
In a new video created by the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper, a 90-second recap of Cook’s career so far shows how he went from a kid growing up in Alabama to the head of the world’s most valuable tech company, with a net worth of $785 million.
Check it out below.
Stanford University has launched a new program, offering faculty members and instructors up to 1,000 Apple Watches and $10,000 in funding to investigate how Apple’s wearable device can be used in healthcare.
“This seed grant program is designed to stimulate and support creative uses of the Apple Watch to address important issues in healthcare,” the Center for Digital Health’s website notes. “We are particularly interested in high impact projects that will positively influence the selected study population and/or clinical workflow.”
Tim Cook has called the AirPods a “runaway success,” but what this means in terms of wireless headphone market share remains to be seen.
A previous report from Slice Analytics claimed that Apple’s new headphones captured a whopping 26 percent for wireless headphone sales in December. However, analysts at NDP Group think the real number is significantly lower — like, in the 2 percent to 3 percent range.
Why the difference?
Update: Apple has denied a report that it might launch a battery-replacement program to cover its iPhone 6 handsets.
The exact reason for the supposed battery-exchange initiative wasn’t revealed in Makotakara’s post, which was short on details. But the now-debunked rumor made it sound like Apple might expand the battery-replacement program in place for certain iPhone 6s handsets due to a fault that causes the units to randomly shut down.
Before Bill Gates was, well, Bill Gates, he was the 20-something software developer behind DONKEY.BAS, a simple yet frustratingly difficult PC game in which players drive a car along a stretch of road while avoiding donkeys.
Created in 1981 to show off the BASIC programming language on the then-new IBM PC, an updated version of the game has now been ported to Apple Watch.
Samsung will reveal the findings of its internal investigation about the exploding Note 7 smartphones one day before it announces its Q4 earnings, claims a new report.
That would put the date at January 23, after which the company no doubt hopes that the news cycle will quickly move on to Samsung’s earnings for the last three months of 2016.
Apple debuted new ads for its freshly-released AirPods over the weekend, demonstrating features like instant pairing and Siri, while getting across the joy that comes with Apple’s wireless dream through a musical dance number.
Starring Los Angeles-based dancer and model Lil Buck, and set to the song “Down” by Marian Hill, the four black-and-white spots debuted on Apple’s YouTube channel.
Check them out below:
Jimmy Iovine is hinting that Apple may indeed be looking to follow Amazon and Netflix down the original TV programming route, telling The Hollywood Reporter that the company is “going to do whatever hits popular culture smack on the nose.”
“At Apple Music, what we’re trying to create is an entire cultural, pop cultural experience, and that happens to include audio and video,” Iovine said.
The de-facto head of Samsung faces arrest on charges of bribing South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye and a confidante.
The call for Lee Kun-hee, Samsung’s vice chairman and the only son of its incapacitated chairman, is part of a larger investigation into alleged corruption involving senior government officials and large South Korean corporations.
For whatever reason, I’ve been playing a ton of iOS games this past week, so with that in mind I decided to focus on games for this week’s “Awesome Apps” instalment.
Whether you’re looking for something quick and easy to while away your Sunday, or a far more in-depth gaming experience that’ll keep you busy until the bad weather ends, I’m confident you’ll find something on this list to enjoy.
Check it out:
Consumer Reports has revised its earlier rating for the new MacBook Pro lineup and now recommends the laptops, after a software update fixed battery problems found in testing.
The respected consumer watchdog previously cited the new laptops’ “highly inconsistent” battery life as the reason it couldn’t give out one of its coveted recommendations — the first time an Apple laptop had failed to make the grade.
Apple’s culture of secrecy was responsible for the departure of Chris Lattner, the company’s former head of developer tools and the creator of programming language Swift, claims a new report.
Lattner recently left Apple for Tesla — with friends putting the move down to the ongoing conflict between wanting to create open-source tools and Apple’s tendency to not want to publicly discuss anything.
Apple’s plan to make the modern TV experience all about apps has just gotten a big boost, with Apple upping the size limit of tvOS apps from 200MB to 4GB.
For those keeping track at home, it’s a whopping 20x the original size limit — and means that Apple TV apps can now be as big as the ones developers can submit for iOS.
Apple may find itself at the center of a new antitrust lawsuit after the U.S. appeals court ruled that the App Store’s “walled garden” could be monopolizing the market for iOS apps.
What the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling takes issue with is the fact that iOS apps can only be downloaded from the App Store, and not from elsewhere — thereby adding up to a potential monopoly.
If you thought Black Mirror had the market cornered on stories about the dark side of technology, you’d better think again!
Netflix just released the official trailer for a new movie called iBoy and, as its name implies, there’s a certain tech connection. Check it out below: